It’s that time of the year again! Time to enjoy the Summer Festivals around Europe.
If you have plans to go to the Glastonbury Festival which is one of the biggest and most dazzling festivals in the UK – attracting over 130,000 persons per year – you’ll certainly like this article, so keep on reading!
We’ve teamed up with a couple of outstanding bloggers of different areas including fashion, music and camping to provide expert tips so you can survive and actually enjoy the 4-day madness of Glastonbury in the best way possible.
In summary, here are the best 13 Tips to survive Glastonbury Festival 2016, divided by 4 categories:
FASHION TIPS, by Sarah from Essbeevee
1. Bring walking boots if you can and good trainers if you can’t.
2. Layers are key – double up on your leggings or tights in the evening.
3. Avoid playsuits and jumpsuits and stay away from maxi dresses.
4. Wear short dresses, skirts or denim shorts with tights – you’ll look stylish (with and without wellies.
MUSIC TIPS, by Lis Ferla from LastYearsGirl
5. To experience the music that LCD Soundsystem generates in a crowd of music fans will be a one-of-a-kind experience.
6. PJ Harvey is an intense and mesmerising performer, there’s no way it won’t be a highlight of the festival weekend.
7. Spanish garage rock quartet Hinds ought to be that discovery for you this year.
CAMPING TIPS, by Shell from Camping With Style
8. Once you’ve pitched your tent, take a picture of it and the surrounding tents – it will be easier to find once you’re stumblind back to your tent.
9. Don’t pitch near, or down wind from the porta-loos.
10. It’s worth investing a bit more than the £20 popup tent, that is, in case you don’t want to experience torrential rain inside the tent.
FESTIVAL TIPS, by Vicky from VickyFlipFlopTravels
11. Don’t arrive early on the first day to get in, unless you like to wait in long queues
12. Don’t setup the camp just anywhere, unless you enjoy long walks since Glastonbury is a huge site, 900 acres.
13. Don’t go to the toilet without your own toilet roll!
For the long version of tips to survive Glastonbury Festival 2016, we suggest reading the following series of Q&A we had with the bloggers:
Sarah from Essbeevee describes herself as short, ginger and hungry. As expected she blogs about food but also about travel + fashion and has been doing it since 2008.
Q: What’s the best advice you can give for the people that are going to Glastonbury for the first time?
A: Few people mention how much walking you do (around 10 miles a day), and wellies really aren’t that comfortable to wear for that amount of steps, even Hunters. So bring walking boots if you can and good trainers if you can’t. Obviously if it’s a mudbath, you’ll have to wear wellies but if it’s not, go for comfort!
The other thing I never hear about is how cold it gets at night – FREEZING. Layers are key – double up on your leggings or tights in the evening, bring a couple of jumpers, hats, scarves. It may be June, but it’s still England!
Q: In terms of fashion, what do you think will be the biggest trend at the Glastonbury Festival? Can you share some tips for the people that want to look fashionable but comfy at the same time?
A: Glastonbury is all about cute headwear (floral crowns are going nowhere), funky sunglasses and hats – something to make you look pretty without the risk of it getting ruined. You can’t over-accessorise, basically. Avoid playsuits and jumpsuits – it’s all fun and games until you realise you have to get fully naked in a portaloo – and stay away from maxi dresses, as they’ll get ruined in an instant from the mud.
I recommend wearing short dresses, skirts or denim shorts with tights – you’ll look stylish (with and without wellies), and if you get caught in the rain or splattered with mud, it’s usually only your tights that will suffer. But don’t bring anything dry clean only or that you’d be really upset if it got muddy – that’s just good sense!
Lis Ferla from LastYearsGirl is a blogger and music writer so obviously we had to ask her about the best concerts of Glastonbury 2016.
Q: If you look at the line-up of the Glastonbury Festival can you tell us 5 concerts that are a must-see and explain why?
A: My #1 must-see on this year’s Glastonbury line-up is LCD Soundsystem. The closest I ever came to seeing James Murphy’s legendary New York dance-punk group live was when I reviewed Shut Up and Play the Hits, the documentary/concert film about the band’s final days, for one of the websites that I write for. And then, just before Christmas, the band released a new festive single. It was the beginning of week’s worth of speculation about a possible reunion – which culminated in the announcement of new shows, including a run of UK festival dates.
The euphoria that the music of LCD Soundsystem generates, live or on record, is something pretty special anyway but to experience that in a crowd of music fans at what is arguably the greatest music festival in the world? It will be a one-of-a-kind experience.
2 – The new PJ Harvey album is, for many reasons, her most challenging record to date (I reviewed it on my blog, if you’re interested). PJ Harvey is an intense and mesmerising performer, so whether her Glastonbury set draws from the ‘travel journals’ that make up the new album or finds her playing “the hits”, there’s no way it won’t be a highlight of the festival weekend.
3 – Savages are just as intense, in their own way, when performing – theirs is a set I’d hope to catch in one of the darkest, sweatiest tents, while the real world continues on outside, oblivious.
4 – CHVRCHES are a band that deserve to be celebrated by big, party-ready festival crowds. Last year’s Every Open Eye in particular shows the trio have an ear for huge, all-consuming hooks – they make perfect pop music that is the opposite of the empty, cotton candy sounds that that much-maligned phrase conjures up and, over the course of two albums, Lauren Mayberry has transformed into an absolute powerhouse of a frontwoman.
5 – Finally, my favourite finds at music festivals tend to be the lesser-known bands, on the smaller stages in the middle-of-the-day slots while your friends are still nursing their hangovers back at the campsite. Spanish garage rock quartet Hinds ought to be that discovery for you this year.
Shell is the face behind Camping With Style and as you can imagine she’s into camping and travel.
Q: Since you’re a camping expert, could you provide some tips to the people that have decided to camp at the Glastonbury Festival?
A: It can be easy to get carried away with the exuberant spirit of Glastonbury, and of course, you don’t want to spend ages faffing around setting up your tent. But when it comes to festival camping, the following tips will help you get maximum enjoyment from the festival experience:
1. Don’t pitch near, or down wind from the porta-loos. To avoid nasty smells and crowds of people streaming past (and falling into) your tent, it’s better to pitch up a little further away.
2. That £20 popup tent might seem like a great bargain, but a cheap single-skin tent can’t cope with the extremes of the great British weather. Prolonged torrential rain will lead to leaks, leaving you and your bedding cold and soggy. You don’t have to spend a lot to get a decent tent, but as a rule, you get what you pay for so it’s worth investing a bit more.
3. Always choose a tent that sleeps more people than you intent to use it for. A 2 man popup really isn’t big enough for 2 adults and all of their stuff, so for 2 people sharing, if you want a modicum of comfort, go for a 3-man tent.
4. Once you’ve stumbled back to your tent, take a picture of it and the surrounding tents. That way, when you are stumbling back to your tent in the early hours of the morning, you can use the picture to navigate your way back to it, making it easier to find.
Finally, festival clean-up is sadly a huge job, so respect the countryside and remember that if you brought it with you, you should take it back home with you.
Vicky from VickyFlipFlopTravels is a travel blogger and is into exploring festivals as well as the world.
All the questions we could ask her about Glastonbury are answered in this article – First time at Glastonbury – that she wrote in 2012 so we just selected one of the mistakes that she recommends not doing…
Mistake #6: not scouting out the festival early enough
“We went for a walk and found a whole new area filled with artists making and selling their ways. You could join in classes and make anything from a ring to a plate to a precious stone. Just around the corner and we found the hippy village. We found groups playing instruments randomly, plays and poetry readings. It was a great spot to chill out in, but by that time we needed to move for Beyonce to close the festival.”
Do you have any tips to survive the Glastonbury Festival? Share them with us in the comments below!
Enjoyable post.
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